


sunny-day-sky blue

by innerglow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 10:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19316632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerglow/pseuds/innerglow
Summary: Sam just wants to be beautiful.{Or the one where Sam buys a dress and fights with himself and all the ways his insides never quite match his outsides.}





	sunny-day-sky blue

**Author's Note:**

> I finally have put down some concrete words for my long loved Carmen!Sam verse. If you've been here for awhile and know about my days on tumblr, you know about my tag there and if you don't, have a little look if you want: [Carmen Tag](http://buticancarryyou.tumblr.com/tagged/carmen%20tag). 
> 
> What really jarred this loose was a culmination of things, but mostly it's this [music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwSI5eKsd7M) for Flesh by SIROP. I came across this because I'm pretty deep into the Skam (+Remakes) fandom(s) right now and the actor in the video, Robin Migne is going to be the S5 lead of Skam FR. And based on his wonderful acting in this video, I can't wait for the first ever S5 of any Skam! 
> 
> I also wanted to say that I know this subject is a very delicate matter and I have approached this with an equally delicate hand and an open heart. I've never personally struggled with gender identity or body dysphoria and I apologize if I might have written anything offensive or off-putting. Please let me know if anything should be adjusted.

_Whatever you do, don’t look at it._

If Sam doesn’t see it, maybe it doesn’t exist. Maybe the feeling that has clawed its way into his bones and made itself at home in his skin, also doesn’t exist if he doesn’t think about it.

_But when are you ever not thinking about it?_

His eyes almost feel like magnets being pulled in the direction of his bedroom door, as though it’s out of his control, as though he never really stood a chance in the first place. He almost lets go, almost lets himself give up (or give in) and then he clenches his jaw and digs his teeth-bitten nails into the skin of his knees.

_Don’t look at it._

_It **doesn’t** exist. _

Sam pulls out Dean’s weed tin, which he jacked earlier when he wasn’t looking and rolls himself a joint. His fingers are less sure than his Brother’s, but with a few extra rolls, a heavy sigh, and a lick of the paper, it’s as good to smoke as it’ll ever be.

The first inhale burns more than he remembers it from when Dean showed him how, his lungs seizing up as his body tries to cough them out. It takes a few seconds for him to recover and attempt another drag, but when he does he feels his lungs stretch with ease and willingness. He watches the curls of smoke roll out of his mouth as he remains still, the back of his door forgotten, if only temporarily. And when he finally breathes out, it’s as though that constant itch under his ribs softens, blurring the edge of it just enough to give him some type of relief.

He sits there, with the blunt between his fingers and the rest of him hunched over on his knees where he sits at the foot of his bed and he waits for the warmth to spread through his system. Waits for it to fill him up and quiet the nagging thoughts that never leave him alone. It’s only seconds, but it feels like years as he watches the smoke twirl from his hand and then the voice he’s been running from starts rattling off again.

Sam pulls in another mouthful of smoke, lies back on his bed and holds it in his chest. He stares up at the ceiling and tries to remember a time when he recalls being happy, when things were somehow easier and less complicated. Maybe back when he was about 10 and he still had no idea about the world around him, because all there was - was chaos. It was never-ending. And maybe it was that constant unsurety, the persistent anxiety of their life on the road and the outright violence of it all, that drowned out his own thoughts and feelings. Maybe back then everything was so loud, that it afforded him the ability to exist quietly within his own skin.

But things changed when puberty hit, when Dad had finally found them some sort of stable ground to put up walls on for a little while. Had done it mostly for him and his incessant need for things that were normal. Things like baseball practices and math homework, things like having a real best friend besides your Brother, of having a room with walls that you could hang a favorite picture on. A place where Sam could escape the chaos he’d always known and to breathe clearly and comfortably for the first time in his life. And it wasn’t too long after he got used to making his own bed, or doing household chores, or working on the current months reading list from his English teacher--that something started to crawl under his skin and make a home in his body.

_Don’t think about it._

Sam flicks the ashes from the joint into the ashtray next to him and pulls in again. This time he closes his eyes and tries to count as high as he can before he breathes out. He remembers Dean telling him that the longer you hold it, the quicker you’ll feel it.

_Ten._

He tries not to think about the stash of magazine clippings he keeps under his bed. Tries to forget about the nights he’s spent up pretending to work on whatever bullshit essay, only to be flipping through the stacks of Cosmopolitan magazines he had somehow collected. Tries not to see the faces he’s stared at and then cut out to keep.

_Fifteen._

He was that old when he decided that he didn’t want to cut his hair anymore; told Dean that it was to save money but knew that was a lie the minute he said it. Instead, he found himself wandering through the shampoo aisles in stores and smelling them all. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have long, silky hair that smelled of summertime fruit. Dean always made them get Head & Shoulders, the 2-in-1 shampoo that smelled too masculine and it made Sam feel gross every time he used it.

_Twenty._

By now his lungs are screaming and there are parts of him that find comfort in their strain, maybe even darker parts of himself that challenge them to give out. Tries to wipe that thought from his mind the minute it tiptoes through, but he knows it wouldn’t be the first time he just wanted it to be as easy as just giving up altogether. Knows that it probably won’t be the last either.

_Twenty-five_.

His chest is heaving with the need to blow out and to taste oxygen and yet when he opens his eyes to do exactly just that, his mind instantly goes back to his door and his traitor eyes try to follow that thought.

“NO!” Sam shouts, his voice hoarse from the abuse of smoke and the lack of oxygen.

Sitting up, he throws the blunt into the ashtray and stands up to pace at the foot of his bed. Instead of the warm release he’d expected in his veins, he finds a nervous type of panic crawling up his spine and making its way to tangle itself around his throat. Now it’s not a matter of him holding his breath, there’s just no oxygen in his lungs to hold. He clutches the sides of his face and tells himself to calm down. _Relax._ It’s going to be fine, everything will be okay.

_Don’t freak out._

_**Freak!** _

He’s turning on his heels mid-pace when he sees the bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on his dresser. Ah, maybe that will numb _those_ thoughts out of his brain. Maybe that was the answer all along; he should have known that weed can make you paranoid--at least he remembers Dean mentioning that it happens sometimes. And _of-fucking-course_ it happens when he just wanted to zone out for a while. Not surprising he would get the short end of the stick on this one.

He always gets the short end of everything.

Sam pours himself a full glass of whiskey and takes a small sip to let his taste buds acclimate from the bitter taste of the marijuana to the burning taste of that amber liquid. The first mouthful is always the worst of it, has him contorting his face as he swallows. It feels like lava pooling into his empty stomach and he relishes in the feel of the warm trace it leaves on its way.

_Ah, yes--that’s more like it._

He finishes the glass in one fell swoop and pours himself another, clutching the glass like it’s the only thing that will tether him to this world.

The music blaring through his bluetooth speaker changes songs to Colorblind by Counting Crows and Sam moves to face the full-length mirror that is propped up against the corner of his room. He stands there, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and lets the palm of his other hand splay itself across his bare chest. Takes in the flat plains there that he wished were softer and more supple, he bunches the skin around his nipple and pretends for a moment what it would be like to have something real there to hold onto. And the more he tries to squeeze there, an undeniable heat begins to burn behind his eyes with the promise of tears.

‘ **I am covered in skin. No one gets to come in. Pull me out from inside.** ’

Another sip of the brown liquid and he puts the glass down and picks up the 15lb weight Dean had given to him a few birthdays ago. It was given as a means to a right of passage into the men’s world. ‘ _Gotta bulk up if you ever want dad to let you go on hunts with us, Samantha._ ’ The weight feels as heavy as his self-loathing does nowadays. He knows Dean meant well, knows that it would be completely normal in any other world except for the one Sam finds himself in.

The one where his insides have never quite matched his outsides.

‘ **I am folded and unfolded** ’

Sam watches in the mirror as his arm curls up, watches as the muscles in his bicep bunch up and the veins in his arm announce themselves along his forearm. He holds his arm with the first curl, watches as the things that should make him feel good, actually open a box of disgust within his stomach. He straightens his arm again, lets it rest by his side and watches as it goes soft and undefined once again. The image cools the fire of hatred, but it’s only temporary--his arm curling back up for a second time. He holds it, watches and then lets go and looks at the way his arm becomes something that makes him uncomfortable and then goes back to being just fine. And he repeats this action another handful of times before the buzz he had waited for finally washes over his body.

‘ **And unfolding** ’

Somehow he finds himself in the middle of his bedroom, his arms above his head, his eyes closed as he sways his hips to the slow melody. He imagines himself in a field of flowers, sees himself as just another closed petal’d springtime lover that waits faithfully for the sun to return again.

The sun above is mothering and warm, he feels every cell in his body reach for it, feels every fiber of his being actually yearn to drown in that beautiful halo of light. Knows that if he just trusts in the power of its light, if he just holds on and tilts his chin obediently enough and never loses sight of it--that eventually his body will unfold into something resembling beautiful and dripping with every summer-freckled kiss he’s longed for.

He _will_ hold on; his knuckles are well skilled in the art of white-knuckling themselves around all the curves life has to throw his way.

Opening his eyes, the room adjusts from color to black and white, the cocktail of whiskey and weed blanketing his mind in a haze of cotton soft serenity. And he embraces the momentary absolution of his never-ending sorrow, stretches his arms out wide and spins at the center of his room. He jumps and pounds his chest, arches his neck to the ceiling and stretches his arms wide again, a delirious type of smile crawling across his lips as his feet move faster than his heart.

‘ **I am colorblind’**

His lips echo the lyrics as his room dissolves around him into a whirring blur of black and whites. And yet as he moves, there’s one blip of color that starts to materialize before him and it flashes bold and bright every time he twirls around. He focuses on the color and knows it’s one of his absolute favorites. It’s a sunny-day-sky kind of blue and it’s attached to the one single solitary thing he’s been trying so desperately to ignore all night.

But when he stops, his feet firmly planted to the carpet of his bedroom--it’s just him and endless sunny-day-sky blue. He just wants to be beautiful, wants to be swallowed up in the galaxy of that blue fabric, wants to put it on and let the old him fall away--wants to bloom into something worthy of that springtime lover in the sky of himself. Wants the sun inside of him to come alive.

‘ **I am ready, I am ready, I am ready** ’

Sam walks until he’s in front of the back of his door and he lets his hand reach for the dress that’s been hanging there since this afternoon. He remembers vividly the moment he first saw it hanging from the rack of the local thrift store that they frequent. It was like it was put there just for him, as though it was never meant for anyone else. And when he feels the delicate lace around shoulders, he closes his eyes and lets himself really _feel_ it. Lets his palm travel over the glitter sequins and down to the soft tulle towards the bottom.

He pulls the hanger off his door and moves back to the mirror in the corner of his room. He holds the dress up to his body and lets his eyes adjust to the contrast of the blue against his ivory skin. Looks at his shoulders and how his shoulder-length hair pools over the lace and feels a door inside of himself unlock, one he’s always tried to keep bolted and locked in the depths of himself.

_Ready._

Putting it on feels like a religious awakening, as though the blue tulle that softly lands above his knees is some kind of gender identity baptism that washes over and through him, again and again. As though there’s a thought in the back of his head that sounds like a church choir singing ‘ _amen, amen_ ’. And his heart beats in time to it as he lets his hands run over the dress that now clings to his body like a glove.

_It was made for you._

The door inside of him opens wide with this thought, as though the sun inside of himself is shining bright in the sea of sunny-day-sky blue. And when he smiles, he feels the petals of himself unfurl towards the light of himself.

Sam turns and kneels by his bed, reaching for the shoebox he knows is there. He pulls it up, places it on his bed and he sits down next to it while he removes the lid to unveil what is hidden within. And the first thing he sees is an old picture of his mom, probably the only picture he’s ever seen of her before everything went to hell back in Kansas. He wonders what she would think about him, wonders if she’d think he was beautiful in his sunny-day-sky blue dress, wonders if she’d call him Samantha lovingly and paint his nails a bright shade of yellow. Wonders if she’d still have room in her heart to love him the way he’s always wanted and needed. He presses his fingers to her face and he smiles quietly, because he hopes she’d still smile at him just as happily now as she did the first time he cried out into this world.

Underneath the picture of his mom is an envelope full of magazine cutouts. Of girl faces, hairdos, clothes, lipsticks and quotes. He sifts through them briefly and then moves on to what he had opened the box for. Underneath everything, towards the bottom, is a tube of lipstick and mascara. He’s had them for years, they’re probably long ago expired, but he keeps them around like some kind of treasure in his box of girly things.

Back at the mirror, he opens the lipstick and twists it up to expose the perfect shade of cherry red. He stares from the rounded edges of use, back up to his reflection. There’s only been a handful of times he’s allowed himself to wear it, to paint his lips with the kind of red that would make boys weak in the knees. And he wonders if a boy would ever get that kind of punch-drunk with the image of it on his lips, tries to imagine it smeared around someone’s lips and what it’d be like to lick it clean.

The first swipe over his cupid’s bow sends a wave of goosebumps marching down his arms. He goes slow and makes sure it carves out his lips in the perfect kind of eat-your-fucking-heart out kind of shape. When he’s satisfied, he rubs his lips together and then switches the tube of lipstick for the mascara. It takes more concentration to get it on with as few errors as possible, but he manages just fine and soon his eyes are gleaming with pride and doll-like.

Sam stares at the image of himself in the mirror, lets his fingers trace their way over the tulle of his dress and then lets them run whisper-soft over his lips. There’s something within him that aligns in a way that usually drags behind him like some kind of sickly shadow. As though the whole of himself has finally stepped into the skin and bones of him and truly appreciates the view before him. He feels full, feels the sun within pouring out like a spilled honey jar. And for once, he gives himself permission to put his fingers into the sticky sweet of it and smiles when it embraces him with open arms.

With the lipstick, he writes the name ‘Carmen’ on the mirror next to his reflection.

“Hello, Carmen.” He whispers, barely loud enough for his own ears.

The name feels heavy upon his tongue, but also like a burden is chipping and breaking off his shoulders at the sound of it. He’s had this name picked out for so long, ever since he heard Lana Del Rey sing that song by the same name. Something about it has always stilled the troubling waves inside his ribs and made it easier for him to breathe. And now he wonders what it would be like to hear someone call him by that name.

Wonders if someone could ever love a girl named Carmen, with cherry red lips and a sunny-day-sky blue dress. Wonders if they could ever look beyond his boy bones to the girl inside of him. Wonders how it’d be like to be called a she/her and if it would ever be enough for someone, or let alone-- _himself_.

He eventually decides that it’s all a work in progress and that for now, at this moment--it’s enough. That it’s more than enough. All of it, even himself.

Sam stares at the reflection of himself as Carmen, does a little twirl and feels the dress expand with air around him. And when he stills once again, he clutches the sides of the mirror with both of his hands and presses his lips next to ‘Carmen’.

Maybe his outsides will never fully match how he feels inside. Maybe he’ll always be Sam to his dad and Dean. Maybe he’ll always have to hide this part of himself, the one that longs for the comfort of sunny-day-sky blue dresses and cherry red lipstick. The part of him that wants to be called a her, the one that wants to grow up to be pretty in someone else’s eyes.

But until then, she decides that today the sun is out and everything is sunny-day-sky blue.

_**You’re enough.** _

Carmen smiles at herself and says, “You’re _fucking_ beautiful.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you're still here, thank you for giving this a read. This story really means so much to me. 
> 
> And if you felt something, anything--please let me know. I'm eager to hear your thoughts! 
> 
> <3


End file.
